ENT385 CONTROL ENGINEERING

Control
Engineering
(ENT 385/3)

System 3

School of Mechatronic
Engineering
Universiti Malaysia Perlis
(UniMAP)
ENT385 CONTROL ENGINEERING

You have learnt the purpose of implementing compensators or controllers in the

control loop to achieve certain performance criteria. The types of compensators
discussed were the PI, PD, PID, phase lag, phase lead and also lag-lead. Among
the approaches that can be adopted in designing the compensator or controller
for a given system is root locus. Another approach that can be adopted is by
using certain controller tuning methods such as Ziegler Nichols etc.

In this laboratory, you will use what you have learnt to design a controller for
the given system.

Q+q

Tank1 Tank2

H1+h1
H+h1 R1 R2
H2+h2
Q+q2

C1 Q+q1 C2

Figure 1. Liquid-level tank with interactions

where Q: Steady-state flow rate C1 = 4m2

H1: Steady-state liquid level of tank 1 C2 = 2m2
H2: Steady-state liquid level of tank 2 R1 = 0.5
R2 = 0.25

The system is shown in Figure 1 above. The system is build up of interacting

tanks.

1) Find the transfer function of the system, with q being the input and h2
being the output.

2) Implement the transfer function of the system in MATLAB/Simulink, and

get the system open loop response to a unit step change in the input.

3) Get the system closed loop transfer function and plot the transient
response. Analyse the uncompensated systems closed loop step response.
You may analyse the system response from the transient response plot or
from the root locus plot, or both. Suggest the type of compensator that
can be implemented to improve the performance of the system. Justify
your answers.

4) Design a suitable controller for the system. You may use any methods to
obtain the parameters of the controller, such as root locus, Ziegler-Nichols
etc.

5) Tune the controller parameters to get:

a) Zero steady-state error
b) 2 times improvement in the settling time (5%)
ENT385 CONTROL ENGINEERING

6) Draw the schematics of how the controller can be implemented using active
or passive networks.

7) For the report, show the development of the process transfer function.
Also show the appropriate plots you deemed to be important in the
development of the compensator. Describe the approach adopted in
obtaining the controller parameters.